


Faceless (Hiatus)

by allollipoppins



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst with a Happy Ending, Detective Katsuki Yuuri, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Murder Mystery, Prince Victor Nikiforov, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allollipoppins/pseuds/allollipoppins
Summary: They said Hasetsu was cursed. That a beast roamed the streets come nightfall and preyed on all whose face it looked upon. In hopes of being spared from the wrath of the Beast, many chose to wear masks to stay out of sights.But what began as a protection soon turned against them, royal authorities leaving Hasetsu to its devices. A new disappearance gives Yuuri an opportunity to get to the heart of the problem, and face his own - not without consequences.[UPDATE: Temporary YoI hiatus.]





	Faceless (Hiatus)

**Author's Note:**

> So you thought I'd dropped out of the YoI fandom did you? Do I have some news for you...
> 
> We're thrilled to present you this brand new fic for the Victuuri Angst Bang! Now with art by the absolutely fantastic Heavy Henry, which you can also find on [tumblr](https://snarkonice.tumblr.com/post/188242995522/art-for-faceless-a-fantastic)!! Henry, there aren't enough words in the world for me to thank you for your patience in bearing with my procrastination, typos and midnight rants, I'm so happy we got to collaborate on this :D
> 
> We hope you will enjoy this new work of ours! Please mind the trigger warnings and tags along the way.
> 
> tw: description of corpses, slight gore

The bells of Hasetsu tolled on a Tuesday morning, just as the sun was about to rise.

It didn’t take long for the sound to reach a small inn on the far end of the city. Most of its inhabitants, guests and hosts alike were already awake by the time they heard the echo of the bells ringing from beyond the trees, on the edge of the forest. Country homes never stood entirely still, even on the eve of the coldest season of the year, and in spite of the early hours; no lack of residents ever plagued this particular inn, and thus never hindered the constant hustle and bustle that happened behind its walls. There would always be mouths to feed, clothes to clean, drinks to pour, beds to sleep in and people to serve.

But just as the wind picked up on the chimes, the bed linen stopped swaying on the cords it hung on, and the conversations died down to barely more than a whisper, and the heavy breaths of a man still caught in slumber gave way to silence.

The bells didn’t even startle Yuuri Katsuki out of his sleep. He woke as he had for the last few days –

<strike>or was it weeks, months, years</strike>

his eyes heavy as lead, threatening to close again, but blinking still, and then opening wide. Yuuri was among those who lived on very little sleep, to the point where he often asked himself whether he had actually spent a few hours dozing off, instead of keeping his eyes firmly closed, waiting patiently for something that would never come. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept at all, without once tossing and turning in his bed.

But then again, he couldn’t remember a day when he had peace either. His childhood years were long since gone, and the transition from one age to another had been so seamless it felt as if he had never lived through it. Yuuri wondered when he had ever started reacting unconsciously to the call of the sirens.

Yuuri sneaked a glance at the light pooling from between the curtains of his window. The rays of sun were far too bright for an early morning, and yet too sharp for the hour to be late.

An inhuman hour, he would sometimes grumble on days when work was so busy at the inn Mari had to wake him up to help in the kitchen and the dining room. But recently, days like these were few and far between. It could only mean one thing.

He turned away from the window, blindly pulling back the curtains as if looking into the first rays of sunlight would burn him. Without waiting any further, Yuuri grabbed a handful of clothes that had been thrown haphazardly on a chair the previous night, and made his way inside the small bathroom that was connected to his personal quarters. The mirror that hovered above the sink was covered with an old towel that was starting to gather dust, but he had no need for it. Yuuri mentally made a note to put the garment in the laundry basket once he was done.

Getting dressed was a quick affair. He could have done it with his eyes closed, only minimally checking that everything was put in the correct way.

Water seeped under his sleeves as he cupped water in his joined hands and brought them to his face. The coolness of it made him hiss lowly, almost scathing and burning. Yuuri kept his palms pressed against his cheeks for a moment still, relishing the feeling of water pooling between his fingers, seeping into the pores of his skin, cooling him down.

He stayed that way for a moment, until he couldn’t any more. With a sigh, Yuuri pulled away, reluctantly dropping his hands and reaching for a towel, and pat his face roughly. The urgency of the situation gave him little time to spare. If he lingered at home, someone would be bound to come looking sooner or later.

Yuuri raised a hand towards the mirror, his fingertips almost closing around the hem of the towel, only to pause an inch away from it. Yuuri gazed at his outstretched hand as it remained a short distance away, unmoving, and shook his head. These things could wait.

Yuuri barely even paused as he walked back inside his room, nor looked when he made his way to the small coffee table next to his bed and reached for his mask, then raised it in the air and brought it to his face. The porcelain blended perfectly with the rest of his face, sculpted especially for this purpose. It didn’t even feel as if Yuuri had put it on, nor as if it carried any weight to it, used as he was to wearing it like a second skin. He breathed in. Out. Blinked. Breathed in, and out again, a few more times. Satisfied, Yuuri walked out and took the stairs that led to the kitchen.

Hiroko Katsuki was already downstairs getting ready for breakfast, already dressed for the day to come. Looking around, Yuuri couldn’t see Mari or his father anywhere in sight. They must have been tending to the last things that needed to be handled before they opened, or until one of their guests should wake up and ask for breakfast and supplies for a bath, or anything else of that sort.

His mother turned upon hearing him approach from behind her. She must have seen something in his posture as she looked up at him, for she only sighed before turning back to the sink, where she washed rice in a large pan. Even though he couldn’t see her, hidden behind a mask that underlined her soft, gentle features, Yuuri would have known her anywhere.

“Won’t you eat a little before you leave?” she said, in lieu of greeting him. His mother knew it was useless to try and feed him when his mind was elsewhere, but it never hurt to try. If Yuuri had inherited a stubborn streak, it certainly came from Hiroko.

As empty as his stomach was, and as enticing as breakfast sounded, the thought of food left a bitter taste in Yuuri’s mouth. It must have showed in the way he tensed, for his mother simply shook her head, then nodded. He held for granted that whatever it was that awaited him, further away on the other side of the forest, would be sure to make his stomach turn. Years of this routine had proved that in spite of his work – or rather, because of his line of work –, sometimes an empty belly was just better. Once he had slipped into his clothes and put on the mask, there was little else he could do that didn’t involve doing his job.

They didn’t speak of it openly. It was an unspoken agreement between himself and his mother, as well as the rest of his family. No one ever spoke of the bells, nor of the silence or the woods that grew thicker and darker come nightfall. It was just another day at work.

“Be safe,” Hiroko simply said, patting his shoulder softly as she passed by him on her way to the burners. Though he couldn’t see it, he could picture her smiling up at him, but he wasn’t sure whether it was small and wary, or wider but resigned. Yuuri briefly leaned into her touch for a few fleeting seconds, and brushed a spot above a porcelain dimple, under which he knew there was a birthmark, wide and spreading on her cheek like a wine stain. His fingers lingered there, even as his mother tilted up her head in silent wonder. They glided down along the plump curve, and he let his hand fall at his side. It was the closest he would ever get to kissing his mother’s cheek.

Yuuri watched her back as she moved around the counter and busied herself with her cooking. He lingered for a few more seconds, before he walked to the doorway.

* * *

It had snowed during the night. The city was already awake by the time Yuuri made his way outside, blanketed in bright white and bustling with activity. A butcher preparing cuts of meat he displayed on his stall, his white cheeks splattered with blood and grime. A blacksmith’s hammer clanging on an anvil as he shaped new blades. A clockmaker turned back the small clogs of the watch he was repairing, hunched over his handiwork. Creatures of habit for the most part, all too engrossed in their daily lives to notice anything amiss.

And yet in spite of the hustle and bustle, the tension was undeniable. People were nervous; people always were. It had a scent that hovered in the air, sharp and acrid. Even if he couldn’t feel it, Yuuri knew it as there. It always sent the animals in a frenzy and made everyone stand on edge. So pungent was their fear that humans could do little to hide it any more, making the surroundings appear much more squalid than they were.

Yuuri could feel the way heads turned as he walked onwards, but forced himself to ignore them, keeping his eyes firmly on the path that led down to the forest. The crowd began to thin out the more he advanced, and yet as he ventured deeper into the forest, onlookers kept on materializing before him. Only fools or people like him would be brave enough to go towards where chaos was, but at the very least it was the easier way to know where to go without needing to ask. From them on, it wasn’t hard to find what he was looking for.

He heard Hisashi before he saw him, barking out orders to stand back and away from the body. A few more steps led Yuuri within a clearing on the edge of which wary onlookers had assembled, looking on at the undoubtedly gruesome scene that stood a few feet away. It almost made him recoil. Empty faces floating in the midst of an otherwise empty forest.

“Got any news for me Hisashi?” Yuuri said, approaching the man who was crouched before the body from where it lied on the ground, covered by a white sheet.

Hisashi snorted. “The good kind or the bad kind?”

Yuuri had to resist the temptation to roll his eyes, even though Hisashi would not have seen him do it anyway. “Is there ever such a thing as good news?”

Hisashi sighed, looking up at him. “I’ll let you see you for yourself” he said, with a certain finality in his tone, as he pulled a corner of the head and revealed what was underneath it.

Yuuri had to repress the urge to look away when the sheet came off. At the very least he attempted to keep his eyes averted from the man’s face – to no avail. The face was bare. His eyes had been closed. The corners of his eyes were strewn with blue veins that webbed their way from the temples down to the pale cheekbones. Blood had been smeared on the eyelids, now dried and caked to the skin.

A gaping hole was all that was left of the man’s chest. The ribcage had been almost parted in half through the middle, spread open like a blooming flower, left bare for the world to examine its contents – or lack thereof. There, between the lung, no heart beat rhythmically in the space it had once occupied.

The rest of the body itself was intact for the most part. It was, Yuuri thought, an odd contrast that never failed to unnerve him. To think that perhaps, the same creature – or rather, the very same being – which had torn the heart out of the victim’s chest with such brutality had also displayed enough humanity to close the eyes of its prey after satiating its hunger.

Yuuri turned his gaze to the trees. Seeing someone uncovered, even in death, was a display far too intimate for him to stand.

“Did you find any traces?” Of what, he didn’t specify. There was never knowing what one could find in cases such as these. This, and he didn’t want to tempt the fates nor to alarm anyone with false sightings or clues.

Hisashi shook his head beside him.

“None that stood out. There were so many people already there by the time we arrived that if there had been footprints, we wouldn’t have been able to tell who they belonged to.”

Yuuri nodded; it did little to clear the interrogations, but at least it was a starting point of sorts.

Hisashi glanced back, peering at something over his shoulder. Yuuri followed his gaze. Through the trees, he could see the hunters gathered together, both the party which had discovered their man, as well as newcomers.

“Was it the Beast?” someone whispers off to the side, where some of the onlookers had gathered.

“Could it have been anything else?” another retorts, their hands clenched into fists, visibly containing their anger in spite of their tone.

“We should have killed that monster a long time ago,” one snarled. They kept their hand firmly pressed around a gun that shook as its owner tugged on it sharply, bullets ricocheting inside the barrel.

Yuuri took a deep breath, steadying himself before asking his next question.

“Any... other prints?”

Hisashi shook his head.

“Too small, what little we could find wasn’t concrete.”

“Has anyone identified him yet?”

“She has,” Hisashi subtly pointed in the direction of the crowd Yuuri had followed into the forest, and he followed his motion. At the front of the crowd a woman, shielded from his sight by other onlookers, wept openly, her sobs only partly muffled by her covered mouth. She clutched her mask with withered hands, almost as if she were about to claw her eyes out or tear it apart as if it were but paper.

Yuuri swallowed uneasily at the sound. Her sobs broke his heart. If he hadn’t been looking in her direction, he would have thought she was out of breath, almost on the brink of choking.

She must be close to the victim, Yuuri thought, and then mentally corrected himself. Was close to the victim.

“Three men found in the same week in the same area, counting this one,” the other man mused. “Just off the path connecting to the river. Well, I say three,” Hisashi trailed off. “Everything has been scattered throughout the perimeter. Might be more, might be less.”

Yuuri inhaled. It shouldn’t be this hard to take in after everything he had seen throughout the years.

<strike>But did witnessing it make it any less wrong?</strike>

“That bad?” he said, his voice so low he thought he had imagined it.

“There was enough to make out different people, but not to...” Hisashi paused, seemingly to find his words.

“But not enough to… piece one back together,” he sighed, the description the least crude way he could think of using to speak of the carnage.

“Yuuri, you don’t think...”

Yuuri cut him off before Hisashi could finish his question.

“Let’s head back,” he sighed. “Bring him to the morgue and get all the witnesses to the station,” Yuuri ordered, already turning back before Hisashi had time to speak. The crowd dispersed as Yuuri walked out of the woods, but many remained.

Some followed, perhaps unconsciously. The people marched onward, confused with the trees and slipping through that had fallen during the night. It turned a murky, liquid brown under their feet as they walked on, leaving behind a trail of footsteps confounded together, impossible to trace back but easy to follow.

A cortège of mourners made its way past him on the way back, all wearing plain black dresses and coats and tunic, formless and lacking embellishments. The masks they wore were white and deprived of any particular ornaments for the most part, worn out of respect. Some stood out still, slightly more revealing than others, as much as they could; leaving nearly bare the crown of a forehead, the firm jut of a chin, the hints of sideburns and creases on otherwise young faces, the exposure akin to a silent, subtle enough protest. They moved of a common accord, a current of black shapes washing over the path, like a funeral march without a casket to bury, in silent sorrow.

Yuuri nodded in their direction as he passed them by. Most of them didn’t appear to see him, nor to acknowledge him; it was hard to tell, given that most of them didn’t have holes on their faces, where the eyes should be. Some, mainly those at the front who weren’t looking at the weeping woman, seemed to notice his presence. The soundless, answering tilt of their head, was almost lost amid the movement of the crowd, but he caught it nevertheless.

It was never just the dead they mourned, he thought. Many wept for the lost, the missing people who had wandered in the forest at night, the children that would never age or grew old much too fast, too soon.

When he passed the gates, one of the villagers stood on a ladder, changing the moon sign that hung below the sign of Hasetsu. He caught sight of Yuuri as he walked through the entrance and inclined his head in his direction. Yuuri nodded back.

The three-quartered moon that previously hung above the gates was swiftly taken off the nails, replaced with a single, rotten half moon.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos and bookmarks are always most appreciated :)
> 
> Come scream with us about YoI on tumblr [here](https://snarkonice.tumblr.com) and [here](https://allollipoppins.tumblr.com)!


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